Beautiful
by Raventhedarkgoddess
Summary: TohruYuki oneshot. What does beautiful really mean to you, Yuki? Dedicated to all of those who have ever gotten an awesome answer to a simple question.


**Beautiful**

"Isn't this place great in summer?" Yuki Sohma's eyes sparked painfully brightly with azure light and happiness in the setting sun, which was a sight far more dazzling than even the pink and yellow sunset itself.

_He's got a real smile on his face! This is going to be such a great summer, I can hardly wait! _Tohru Honda thought happily to herself. "Yeah, I really love the secret base!" She replied, matching the enthusiasm she heard in his voice despite the heat that caused her to have to wipe sweat from her brow.

The a teasing summer breeze moved through both of their hair as they set the baskets down and knelt side by side in front of the rows of little plants. "Even the air tastes fresh on the first night of summer break," Tohru commented.

"Yeah... Everything seems different as soon as you realize you're out of school," agreed Yuki. "No more teachers, no more homework, no more fanclub, and no more dysfunctional student council."

"Hehe, I'm glad. You need a little break this summer. We all do, with all that's been going on... Within your family."

"Yeah... The Zodiac will hopefully give up for the summer, too. Including Akito..." At the mention of the family head, Yuki stopped speaking and grabbed uncomfortablly at one of the plants in front of him, pulling harder than he normally would have.

"Come on," Tohru said gently, pulling one of the plants in the two rows in front of her, "Let's get finished so we can get back home and out of this heat."

"All right."

Neither of them could think of anything else that needed to be said, and so they were quiet as they worked on pulling the strawberry plants out of the ground. Yuki's hand suddenly came out at the same moment Tohru's did, and the two of them brushed hands.

Both withdrew quickly, suddenly embaressed at the unplanned contact."I'm sorry!" Tohru yelled, sputtering and blushing as she looked away, trying to find something else in the sparse forest around them to focus her eyes on.

"I'm sorry too, but please, there's no reason to be embaressed, Miss Honda."

"I'm sorry for that too, Yuki..."

Yuki smacked his forehead and started to say something, but ended up shaking his head and deciding not to say anything. "It's alright."

"It's beautiful up here, isn't it?" Yuki said, just to take Tohru's mind off the previous incident. "It just... Makes everything seem so, so much better."

"It does... Thank you so much for letting me come up here with you all those times." Yuki looked over at Tohru: Her face shining with pure graditude, her eyes alight with the sunset, her skirt and shirt streaked with dirt. _A perfect sight._

"No... No problem," he managed to get out, but Tohru hardly seemed to notice the awkwardness in his voice as she set rather blissfully about her work with a peaceful smile on her face.

_She... makes me feel like I'm sharing some of that peace with her. _Yuki's lips twisted into an idenitcal smile, and the pair of them worked in further silence for a long time.

"Yuki, can I ask you a foolish question? It doesn't mean much to anyone else, but you've always cared about anything and everything I had to say and so I feel more comfortable asking you, but if you don't want to it's fine, I just..."

"It's okay," he said, inwardly wishing she wouldn't always feel the need to apoligize. "Go ahead."

"What... What does beautiful mean to you, Yuki? Everyone uses the word, but what does it really, really mean?"

"Well, beauty... Beauty starts as..."

_How do I respond? What do you say when you're asked something like THAT? It's so random, but it's so important to her that I would feel awful not telling her, and if I screw it up... I don't want to screw it up. I want her to be happy..._

_What am I worried about? _The thought cut across his mind, giving him a hidden courage to begin to babble out the first thing in his mind.

"Beauty is... Beauty, Tohru, is anything that makes us really, truely happy. It could be a song, or a book, or the sunset, or... A place. Or... It could be a person. It could be anythign about a person..."

"Even something as simple as their dreams. Or their laugh. Or... Or seeing them smile. Any of that could be beautiful, because it makes you both happy. Like... Right now, you're smiling, and the wind is blowing your hair, and you just look so happy and content that... You're beautiful, in my opinion."

Tohru stopped and stared at him. "Yuki... M...Me?" Her smile got ten times bigger and she looked him straight in the eyes. "Yuki... Thank you!"

"See?" And he smiled too.

"Yuki, your smile is beautiful too!" She thrust herself foward and caught him in a hug, still on her knees, and slowly she pitched foward as a little rat in front of her ran out of the way. "I'm sorry, I was just so happy I...!"

"No," he said, scrambling up her leg to sit and watch the last of the dying sun. "This is beautiful."

_Just like you are truely beautiful. Now, if only I'd had the courage to tell her the rest of how I feel..._

_We've got time either way._

A pop ruined the moment as Yuki re-transformed, leaving him to grab his pants off the ground and go running off into the cover of some nearby trees. "I'm sorry, Tohru!"

_Turning into an animal, however, is not..._


End file.
